Demotic Graffiti and Other Short Texts Gathered from Many Publications

As continuation of the two preceding volumes of Short Texts with
demotic votive inscriptions (vol. I) and mummy labels (vol. II), this
volume brings together all but 800 demotic and Greek-demotic graffiti.
These are in principle all the graffiti published in periodicals, congress
proceedings and colloquia and Festschrifts, as well as in
monographs that are not exclusively concerned with demotic graffiti
(chiefly excavations reports). The texts are presented in topographical
order from South to North, with those from a single monument kept
together. The texts show the full gamut of themes encountered in demotic
graffiti, which are more varied than their reputation would suggest: the
commemorative inscriptions often have more to offer than just names and
provide information about the careers of the inscribers, occasionally even
touching on historical events of a larger scale. Specifically the numerous
and variegated graffiti from the stone quarries in Middle Egypt and at
Tura and Masara opposite ancient Memphis deserve to be mentioned because
many of these texts are published here for the first time. Several
clusters of these quarry graffiti belong to the first demotic texts that
were recorded in the nineteenth century, and they constitute the only
extant copies for many texts that have now been destroyed.
In
addition, there are some three hundred brief inscriptions on various
objects such as coins, hieratic papyri and mummy linen, stelae, sculptors'
models and plaques, various vases and amphoras, containers for embalming
materials, dishes for the preparation of kyphi, and various other
objects. Although only a few of these may be regarded as proper graffiti,
most of them show a comparable close relationship with the objects on
which they are to be found - for example the notes on stelae, papyri and
mummy bandages, or the marks on wooden coffin boards or drums of stone
columns - which is why we have collected them in this volume, trusting
that the reader will not be misled as to their nature by the title of the
volume.
There are also some sixty further additions to Short
Texts volumes I and II: some stelae, a number of mummy labels and
strips of mummy linen, including two previously unpublished linen pieces
from Lille University.